The red queen

March 23, 1429 was the birthdate of Marguerite d’Anjou, the French-born queen of Henry VI. She was a courageous, stubborn, proud, ruthless woman who’d been dealt a bad hand in her marriage to Henry, whose misfortunate was that he’d been born a king’s son. Here are a few Marguerite scenes from Sunne. The first is on p. 20, at Ludlow, where seven year old Richard has his first glimpse of the Lancastrian queen.
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His first impression, quite simply, was one of awe. Marguerite d’Anjou was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, as beautiful as the queens of Joan’s bedtime tales. All in gold and black, like the swallowtail butterflies he’d chased all summer in such futile fascination. Her eyes were huge and black, blacker even than the rosaries of Whitby jet so favored by his mother. Her mouth was scarlet, her skin like snow, her dark hair covered by a headdress of golden gauze, her face framed in floating folds of a glittery shimmering material that seemed to be made from sunlight; he’d ever seen anything like it, couldn’t keep his eyes from it. Or from her.
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The next scene on P73 takes place at St Mary’s abbey in York, when Marguerite has just gotten the devastating news of the Yorkist victory at Towton.
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Weighed down by her sodden skirts, unable to catch her breath, watching as the abbot floundered beside her in the snow, while her servant struggled to maintain his own footing and gingerly extended his hand toward her, Marguerite suddenly began to laugh, jagged bursts of strangled mirth, the sound of which nightmares are made.
“Madame, you mustn’t give way!” The abbot, less timid than her servant at laying hands upon royalty, grabbed her shoulders, shook her vigorously.
“But it is so very amusing; surely you see that? I’ve a little boy and a sweet helpless fool asleep in your lodging and no money and I’ve just been told I no longer have an army and look at us, my lord abbot, Sacre Dieu, look at us! If I do not laugh,” she gasped, “I might believe all this was truly happening, and happening to me!”
“Madame…” The abbot hesitated, and then plunged ahead courageously. “You need not flee, you know. York would not harm a woman, still less a child. Your lives would be safe with him, I do believe that. Stay here, Madame. Entreat York’s mercy, accept him as king. Even if you reach Scotland, what then? Ah, Madame, can you not let it be?”
The lantern light no longer fell on her face; he could not discern her expression. But he heard her intake of breath, a sibilant hiss of feline intensity. Her hand jerked from his. “Oui, Monseigneur,” she spat. “On my deathbed!”
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Lastly, on Pages 344-345, is a scene the night before the battle of Tewkesbury between Marguerite and Edmund Beaufort, the Duke of Somerset. She has just agreed to go with his daring battle plan—on one condition, that her son is to be kept away from the fighting.
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“I cannot make you a promise like that,” he said, tiredly and very gently. “You know I cannot. I’d give my life to keep him safe; we all would. But I cannot forbid him, Madame. No one can. He thinks he is of an age to command. His pride demands it. He knows that York was not yet nineteen when he did win at Towton. Worse, he knows that Gloucester is himself just eighteen now. I cannot forbid him, Madame.
“The true command of the center will rest with Wenlock, not Prince Edward. And I think he will agree to remain mounted during the battle.” For a moment, he had an image of Edward’s white, set face. “In fact, I am sure of it. But further than that, he will not go. And more than that, I cannot do.”
Marguerite nodded, and he saw that she’d not expected to prevail. “No, I suppose you cannot,” she said tonelessly. She shrugged, wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Well, then, we’d best tell the others what we plan for the morrow, my lord.”
She let him take her hands in his; they were like ice, bloodless. “You have it all, Somerset,” she whispered. “It is all in your hands…The vanguard, the battle, the fate of Lancaster.” She drew a ragged breath. “The life of my son.”
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